Name: Elysium Fire
ISBN: 9780575090620

Alastair Reynolds

Featuring Inspector Dreyfus - one of Alastair Reynolds most popular characters - this is a fast paced SF crime story, combining a futuristic setting with a gripping tale of technology, revolution and revenge. One citizen died a fortnight ago. Two a week ago. Four died yesterday . . . and unless the cause can be found - and stopped - within the next four months, everyone will be dead. For the Prefects, the hunt for a silent, hidden killer is on . . . Alastair Reynolds has returned to the world of The Prefect for this stand-alone SF mystery in which no one is safe. The technological implants which connect every citizen to each other have become murder weapons, and no one knows who or what the killer is - or who the next targets will be. But their reach is spreading, and time is not on the Prefects' side.

Elysium Fire

Gavin

Both rushed and too long. Characters do lots of excessively dumb stuff, including the most sober and clever characters, Dreyfus and Aumonier, who both act like Maverick badasses here. The contrivance at the beginning (to artificially promote Ng and concoct some drama with Sparver) is too transparent. Way too many board meetings with people doing an increment of exposition and muttering darkly.

There is another scary exponential problem, but unlike in the last book, halfway through it gets capped at 2000 potential deaths. Intentionally small stakes can be good (see Cibola Burn from the Expanse series), but here it just sends up the emoting and silliness from previously professional agents.

Still readable, but it undermines the characters that made the first pop.

Elysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera. Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives. Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants. And these "melters" leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths. . . As panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies.

Cindy Lieberman

This novel returns us to the democratic worlds of the glitter band where a rabble-rouser is sowing discord. Intricately plotted and involving, this Prefect sequel offers an interesting look at policing in a society that is self-governing - where residents “vote” on issues on a constant basis via neural implants that register their responses on an almost sub-conscious level. But when some of the implants start to melt and their hosts die, the Prefects (and their amazing “whiphound” weapons) jump into action.

Stephen Gill 

Another excellent piece of work from Mr Reynolds.

Kevin Finlayson

Ian Betteridge

Dawid

The Hissing Saint

Stewart Scott

Steven O'Toole

Jess Belliveau

Elysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera. Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives. Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants. And these "melters" leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths... As panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies. For more from Alastair Reynolds, check out: Revenger